Why you should boost your business with paid ads on social media

Social media has become a crucial tool for businesses for growth and success, playing a key role in marketing strategies. Yet some small businesses still shy away from using paid ads, instead relying on their organic content. With a good following, organic content can work well but if you want to cut through the noise of social media to get your message out, attract customers, and stand out against the competition, that’s where paid social media advertising comes in. In this blog post, we'll explore five reasons why paid social media advertising is essential for your business.

1. Reach your target audience more effectively

With organic social media, reaching your target audience and keeping their attention takes time and effort. You also have little control over who sees your posts. With paid ads, you can whittle down your target audience more effectively by using demographics, interests, behaviours, and more. You can even set up different target audiences for different ads to really ensure the right messaging is getting in front of the right people. You can find out more information on audience segmentation here.

You can also tailor your ads to the action you want your audience to take. For example, if you want to drive traffic to your website, you can use a lead generation ad set up which includes a button that directs them exactly where you want them to go. Not only this but the ads will be shown to viewers who have a history of responding well to this type of action.  

2. Increase brand awareness

Paid social media advertising can help you increase brand awareness by reaching more people and allowing you to display your brand more prominently. For small businesses that are just starting out, this can be a really efficient way of getting your brand in front of a relevant audience quickly, or for businesses that have been around a while this can help to reach a new fresh audience.

It is important to remember that the success of paid ads isn’t always about immediate sales. For some businesses simply reaching a wider audience may be the main goal. Harnessing this new brand awareness means you can combine your paid strategy with a well-thought-out organic strategy for a successful and cost-effective long-term marketing approach.

3. Get more traffic to your website

Even if your business page has a lot of followers, it’s likely that only a small percentage of them will need the product or service your business offers at any one time. Paid social media ads can target people who are actively looking for what your business offers. By using a paid ad that includes a button directing them straight to your website, you can increase your website visits and, in turn, convert new customers. What's even better, you can track the results of your advertising campaigns using analytics to see how your ads and website traffic perform over time.

Often, customers won’t make a purchasing decision the first time they use a website. Using paid ads and the Facebook retargeting pixel means your advert will be displayed to people who have previously shown an interest in your brand, gently reminding them you are there for when they are ready to buy into your service or product.

4. Stay ahead of the competition

Social media can get noisy with many businesses vying for an audience’s attention. Using paid ads to complement your organic social media activity can ensure that your brand is seen and heard. Businesses that don't invest in paid advertising run the risk of being left behind and missing out on attracting customers.

It’s easy to assume that paid advertising is just for large organisations with even larger budgets, but you don’t need to spend huge amounts of money to run a successful paid ad. Depending on how much competition there is for your product or service, even a small budget per day can get your brand out to a much wider audience than you would reach with organic social posts alone. Being specific with your audience targeting will help to ensure you get the most out of your budget.

5. Grow your customer base

Ultimately, the goal of paid social media advertising is to help you grow your customer base. By increasing website traffic, brand awareness, and targeting the right people, you can attract more customers, get more leads, and generate more business. Social media advertising is one of the most cost-effective ways of marketing as it can be adapted around any budget. When done well, it can be highly successful in converting potential customers into loyal ones. 

By not including paid ads in your social media marketing strategy, you could be missing out on a simple, cost-effective way to grow your business. Whatever the size of your business, using paid advertising can help you reach your target audience more effectively, drive more website traffic, increase brand awareness, stay ahead of the competition, and grow your customer base. If you would like to explore the potential of paid ads but are worried that you don’t have the resources to manage them or just don’t where to start, then get in touch to find out how we can help.